While computers are now widely used in China, there remains a continuing problem of inputting Chinese characters into computers quickly and conveniently. Because the complicated structure of Chinese characters is very different from the relatively simple alphabetic system of western languages, the traditional computer input/output technology is inadequate to handle the input of Chinese characters. Despite the appearance of several encoding systems for Chinese character in recent years, there remain technical problems which prevent acceptance of these input techniques.
The existing systems include those based on the "PinYin" (phonetic) system, a combination of the PinYin system and character form techniques, whole character encoding, stroke input encoding, and stoke form encoding. The problems with these systems range from the existence of too many synonym codes (i.e., degeneracies), to difficultly in use, to inefficiency leading to slow input speed. Other encoding systems, while high in speed, are poorly described, thereby leading to confusion. Finally, some systems are overly cumbersome due to an overly detailed structural representation, and others fail to use the standard 26 character English character keybaord. In short, there are limiting problems with all current systems. Attempts to compensate for such shortcomings within a computer software system provide an inadequate solution.
The PinYin encoding system presents several advantages over other systems. First, it is already part of the curriculum of China's primary schools and many people are therefore familiar with the system. Additionally, since PinYin uses English characters as its encoding characters, it is a simple matter to directly encode Chinese characters by using standard English character computer keyboards. However, since the output of the PinYin encoding system consists of Chinese characters, and not the PinYin forms of those characters, too many degenerate cases result. Though some software processing can be used to compensate for this effect, it is inadequate. For a language such as Chinese, with its many dialects and slangs, there are simply too many Chinese characters for the user to remember or pronounce correctly. Finally, in Taiwan, Chinese characters are denoted with different phonetic symbols, not English letters. Therefore, PinYin faces a special barrier in Taiwan and other Asian countries.
The "PinYin-form" combination system requires that the user master two aspects of Chinese characters: their pronunciation and their written form. This is inconvenient in that the user must perform two operations. First the sound and form of the character must be determined, then the information is entered into the computer by combining them together.
The whole character keyboard is based on the use of a special hardware keyboard, rather than the standard English language keyboard. Additionally, the input speed of this system is very slow and is not suitable for wide use.
Although the stroke input encoding system is easy to learn, it presents too many degenerate cases and is not suitable for entering large amounts of data.
The stoke form encoding system is based on a process of first determining the radicals of the characters, then encoding them according to an established set of rules. The stoke form systems developed to date, however, have suffered from the lack of a suitably developed theoretical structure. Therefore, the system still suffers from a large number of synonym codes and slow input speed. It is also difficult to use.
The present invention overcomes these disadvantages by providing a more effective method of character encoding by taking into account the analysis of the individual characters.